


seashell clouds

by blankperiod



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Beaches, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drama & Romance, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26137711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blankperiod/pseuds/blankperiod
Summary: at least, the ending is beautiful.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	seashell clouds

**Author's Note:**

> Poetry at the beginning is by honorable John Mark Green.

_When I lean my ear_

_up against your seashell heart_

_I can hear an ocean of love_

_roaring inside._

She looks like an ethereal being, her silhouette against the impending sunset. The floral white summer dress bellows with the wind, exposing her long creamy legs which touch the ground beneath his sandaled feet, as she is bare because she takes delight in the feeling of moist sand against her skin. The flower crown that adorns her pretty pink head, made of tuberoses and fresh yellow freesias fills his nostrils with a sweet summer smell, leaving him with a longing for love and so much more.

Blush colored glossy lips part and they are moving but he can't hear a word, _she is so goddamn beautiful_ , he feels his heart rate accelerate. He tries to think, think about what little information he can gather from his week ago memory when she was telling him about the smell and meaning of those damned flowers, and comes to the conclusion, he cannot.

He cannot blame the sweet citrus smell with an almost nose tingling freshness of the freesias for the reason why he is at a loss for words. He cannot blame the strawberries for making her lips look so pink and plum and so perfect for wanting to kiss her. He cannot blame the red bikini which hugged her petite frame all day long when they were playing beach volleyball or the chipped green nail polish that coats her fingernails. He cannot blame the tuberoses for having the narcotic effect she seems to have on him.

The one to blame is the scent of her skin. Those damned green of her eyes, so turquoise, so jade that it's not even seafoam or emerald anymore. It's a shade of green that's only reserved for Sakura, a green that only lives in her eyes. The pulchritudinous shade of pink, a pink so uncommon and enticing that he cannot imagine another shade of color that suits her more than that.

He has seen her with chapped lips and four coats with an ugly blue scarf wrapped around her neck with Harry Potter spectacles but she still remained exotic, to say the very least, however now she is beyond bewitching, divine and a goddess as she walks beside him in small steps, in peace and humming a tune he doesn't know but is familiar with.

_Time spent at the beach should never be wasted._

The dusk falls upon them at an increasing rate, and he thinks this is the end. He cannot lie to himself or her anymore.

Just as he is about to talk, snap out of his trance, this all feels like a vintage telenovela where the girl in question runs a few steps ahead of him, her shoulder length hair in a small ponytail; some strands out and framing her face which makes her look even prettier. The beach elixir does her hair good, the sun, salt, and wind making it stick to her skin which is now a tone more reddish than he remembers; sheer with a thin layer of sweat, and it's the end of July after all. She runs ahead, ever the amateur seashell collector and he pockets his hands in his beach shorts, suddenly missing the warmth of her hand that hovered over his moments before.

He looks away, the spell was broken. Summer evenings aren't nice. He feels high, on something, something he cannot point out and he knows he hasn't even gone around one mile within the radius of drugs, ever. His mother would abandon him.

_So what was this feeling?_

The palm trees in the faraway distance fade, coconuts on the sand lonesome, a distant bonfire roars to life which he was sure his friends were lighting up. He decides they should go back, he can wait, they did venture quite a distance on their own, Sakura lost in the picturesque nature that surrounded her and he in her.

He should feel ashamed, shouldn't he? He was ogling at a friend, a girl who he knew since his teenage years and a girl who never concealed her emotions, feelings for him; towards him. So why, why does he feel like this was normal, why does he feel arrogant that he is the one with her at this very moment, that he is the one capturing her smile, the stars in her eyes as she bends over and stands upright again when she realizes her crown might fall and blushes as she catches his eyes on her. Why do his lips twitch upwards, somewhere between a smirk and smile on his face as she tugs the flower crown down so that it doesn't fall and bends over again to collect seashells, casting a shadow behind her on the golden sand?

_Why?_

Why does it feel like she is his? Why does she being his, fill his heart with joy and embarrassment and arrogance and so much more that makes his ears and the back of his neck hot?

_Sasuke was in love with Sakura._

The realization hits him like a force larger than which untidy waves crash against the shore, a few steps from his feet. Sakura. He knows. He knows how to define this high now. He knows and it's on the tip of his tongue and he wills himself he will tell her his feelings today and he is about to when-

"Sasuke! Come look, what I found!" Sakura waves frantically from her crouched down position and he wants to warn her to be careful so that she doesn't bruise herself from broken seashells because she never cares for herself first, but his mouth fails him again and he wordlessly walks towards her, hypnotized by that childlike smile and the golden fire in her emerald eyes. Her white sundress brushes the sand, gets dirty while she stares at him, and at that moment Sasuke finds it hard to breathe, his lungs constrict.

_Is it possible for humans to be this… beautiful?_

He strolls over to her and looks down to her palm where she looks at something with so much adoration in her eyes that at first Sasuke is unable to decipher exactly what she was talking about.

Sea glass?

"Sasuke here.." Sakura whispers to him as she extends her hands and towards him when she crouches down in front of her and he sees the treasure she has found. Its sea glass, those waves, and sand smoothed colorful baubles that only show up during lucky days, or at least that's what he knows from his mother.

Sasuke isn't the one that indulges in the delicacies and the delicate feelings of happiness in life, a happiness that she can feel from getting her favorite ice cream flavor at the popular parlor which runs out most flavors really quick, butterscotch really?, stealing dango from Naruto and Ino and running away with the innocence of a child in kindergarten, trying to fit herself in a swing that obviously isn't for them at 19 anymore and then laughing to herself, Sasuke my butt is too fat!, or looking at the moon and pretend to bathe in the moonlight, even though in the city they reside in, with its skyscrapers and apartment complexes and mansions rarely give them a chance to get an inch of real moonlight and the other small incidents that Sakura seems to embrace in a way that even makes Sasuke jealous.

_How?_

So when Sakura holds up that glass made four-leaved clover for him to see, he doesn't feel anything special about it, his heart doesn't skip a beat, which he sure hers does, he doesn't feel his face break out into a smile. Instead, his heart twists because there are scrapes and bruises on her fingers, the tips a glowing red in the fading sun at a distance because she has been digging hot sand all afternoon making sandcastles.

What will he do to this girl? Sasuke wants to flick her apparently six finger forehead, so annoying.

However, one look at the silly grin on her face is enough for his frustration to melt away. "Sasuke.." she begins; his name rolling off her peachy lips which look nothing short of an aphrodisiac at the moment, his throat suddenly feels parched and dry like a madman who has been traveling in the desert for days without water, and Sakura oh, she looks like an oasis of love, of water and he only wants to… wants to kiss her.

That tempting feeling again. He shakes his head. This feeling burns him, and as Sasuke has always prided himself in being a hot blooded male, it makes him want to do something on impulse, something that needs no calculation, it makes him want to give in to something so natural and carnal such as kissing a girl he has known his whole life, a girl who he knows has feelings for him, but he still feels a burning sensation at the pit of his stomach and what ifs churning his mind and spreading faster than a lethal poison.

What if Sakura doesn't like him anymore? What if she likes someone else? What if Sakura hates him for kissing her? What if she doesn't reciprocate his feelings?...

"Sasuke? Is something wrong?" Sakura asks her voice barely above a whisper.

Wrong? Woman I want to kiss you, right now. "It's alright," he mumbles.

Sakura stands up and he follows. She faces the fading sun, her toes brushing the cool waves that crash on the shore. The sea glass is still in her palms and she relishes in the feel of the wind blowing past her face. The sun kisses the horizon, painting the sky with its final stroke of the red orange hue for the day when Sasuke turns her around while placing firm hands on her shoulders and presses his lips on her own.

_He kisses her._

His warm lips are frantic and tense against her glossed ones like he is unsure. She can feel the warmth radiating from his body as he cups the back of her neck which ignited sparks in deep within her belly, electricity passing down her spine in spirals but oh how she loves it. Her own fingers itch to snake around his neck to tangle in those dark locks of his or hold onto his biceps for dear life because she feels like her knees will give away any moment but Sakura is wide eyed and a mess, her arms frozen as it immediately falls freely to her side and at the same time she drops the sea glass from her palms, uncaring of dropping a gem that only lucky people find in their lifetime as her cheeks warm and her eyes flutter shut following.

It's gone as soon as it came. He broke away from her, his own eyes wide with shock. His fists clenched as he removes his hand from her bare shoulders and backs away from her as if he had been electrocuted and Sakura freezes in the spot. Sasuke runs a hair through his sweaty locks and looks down and up and sideways wondering if magically Naruto or Suigetsu or even Sai and even perhaps old man Kakashi would appear and tell him to say the right thing to the woman in front of him because he has absolutely no fucking idea on how to confess.

And he doesn't want to hurt her. He will never forgive himself if he hurts her due to his inability to voice his fucking emotions to the woman. He watches as all the light drains from her evergreen eyes, her skin turning pale even if the last orange-red blazing rays of the sun kiss her face, he watches her, because she looks crestfallen.

He is the one to blame. All of it.

"Sakura, I-" he begins but before he can even begin to explain his actions, she backs away; small steps at first and then bigger ones until she is turning around and running while the flower crown she so adoringly wore that entire day slips but she keeps running.

Running away from him, and them.

Before his brain registers the scene in front of him, his legs start moving, following her, because she is that godforsaken annoying woman that gets under his skin, that haunts him even in his waking hours and oh, oh he loves her and he knows, he knows he needs to get her back and hold her so tight so that angel who he loves doesn't slip away like the sea glass from her fingers, like moments before, and he doesn't want her to be that sea glass, that once in a stroke of lifetime luck because he knows, he loves her. Sakura isn't his once in a lifetime, no, Sakura is his forever and more.

_The world is full of possibilities and indescribable things but he knew, Sakura was the one._

Yes, perhaps the moment he knew was when he saw her crying at that park when they were six. He was holding a red ball and stared at her blankly unable to move because girls have cooties and he didn't know how to soothe a crying girl. She was holding her forehead and sniffling when another blonde that wasn't his dumb playmate came over to that girl and sprouted some words that finally gave the green eyed girl some peace and to stop crying. He felt relieved but still, a nagging feeling tugged at his mind if you could have helped her she would have stopped crying sooner, but Sasuke dutifully turned away and walked towards his brother with his big red ball in hand and forgot about it because he doesn't like being guilty. Or it might have been that one time she made him a bento full of tomatoes, or maybe that time she kissed him on the cheek sweetly after her first confession regardless if it was reciprocated or not. Perhaps it was her beauty, courage..her, her, her.

He runs and due to the advantage he has over her, his height, he catches up soon enough and circles his palms over her wrist forcing her to look back at him. Her eyes, glistening, it represents the sea at that moment. It was reflecting the shimmering stars in the night sky, the half moon, and his world. Always, always reflecting the beauty of others and he was at a loss of words why, why would she do that, shed tears for him when she had so much of her own beauty to share?

_They leave the same impression; beautiful but annihilating._

For her the ocean was freedom, it was more than a dream, a faraway soul searching expedition. She lived to be so close to her soul, the taste of infinite salt on her lips, the wind in her hair, the burn of scorching sun on her skin. It was like alleviating from reality, the city. She wished for a perfect fairytale and when he had kissed her, a thousand and a few unseen fireworks roared in the sky and for a second she thought finally, maybe finally, he was coming to her.

But when he had looked at her with confusion and accusation in his dark charcoal, endless and daunting, eyes and not with love and affection, she understood. She was just another one of his mistakes.

"Sakura listen to me," he starts with conviction, lacing his tone however it betrays the nervousness he feels in his soul. She looks at his and turns slowly, taking her wrist out of his grasp and look at him, piercing him with those green eyes.

"I'll be there to hold you when you fall."

"I know I am not the ideal poster child or man for that matter, but..." he gulps, takes a breath, let it go, and it is an "I have fallen and… and I need you to hold me up" he whispers looking down because he cannot look at her eyes now, no. He feels the burn of his confession in his chest but at the same time a strange weight lifts off his shoulders. It feels liberating, oh it does, however, her silence, it scares him.

_I hope I don't burn us._

She doesn't register what escapes his lips fully. Was this an answer? An answer to that one confession from two summers back? The cruel, cruel summer which left her in shambles but she put up with a smile because she had faith in him? Was this a dream? Was this summer real?

He loves her, he loves her, and he loves her.

She lets the confession sink in her chest until warmth fills her soul. A radiating new dawn breaks open, for them, a once in a lifetime love.

_I love you. I love you, I love you._

He is still looking down at the sand beneath them when she takes a step and all but throws herself as she loops her arms around his neck just to feel him close, real, and warm. This isn't a teenage dream anymore, this is reality.

_He is real, she is real, and they are real._

He stumbles back a bit from her sudden show of affection. Sakura has always been expressive whether it be in her smiles, the crinkle of her eyes, her hugs, or her actions. But this took him by surprise quite figuratively because he wasn't expecting that, at all. Unsaid, he wraps his arms around her small waist, her cotton covered skin meets his bare fingertips. She buries her face in the hollow of his shoulder blades and he inhales the sweet smell that the flower crown seemed to seep through her entire being.

She looks up at him after they stay in their embrace for an eternity and more and smiles at him. A blush covers her freckled cheeks, he can guess as he raises his hand to thumb over her now warm cheeks. It's getting colder now, and he plans to give his hoodie to her when she stands on her tiptoes to press her lips to his own and Sasuke's brain all but short circuits.

_Breathe me in, breathe me out._

It's quick but it breaks down several emotional walls around his heart. She moves away, not even an inch, their lips just shy of contact and he presses his forehead to hers.

"I'll hold you, Sasuke." she whispers, her tone forever affectionate.

_It has always been him._

He smiles down at her, a rare smile, beautiful, and pulls her closer to him, molding her small frame to perfectly fit him, as he claims her lips for the second time that day and its bliss.

**Author's Note:**

> end.
> 
> thankyou for reading!


End file.
